The Urgency Trap
When a VP departs suddenly, when the board has set a hiring timeline, or when the company is growing faster than its leadership infrastructure, the pressure to fill the seat immediately is real. This pressure is the most common cause of fast wrong hires.
The pattern is consistent: urgency drives compromised briefs, compressed assessment processes, and offers made to candidates who are "close enough" rather than right. The close-enough hire fails at month 9-12, and the company runs the search again — this time with 12 months of organizational disruption in its wake.
Balancing Speed and Quality
Quantify the cost of the open seat honestly
The urgency narrative is often driven by anxiety rather than precise cost analysis. What specifically is not happening because this seat is open? What is that costing, per week, in concrete terms? If the answer is "the sales team is underperforming and we're losing $50K per week in pipeline," that's a real cost that justifies urgency. If the answer is "it feels bad to have the role open," that's anxiety — not urgency.
Consider an interim executive
If the seat genuinely cannot be vacant for 8-10 weeks, consider a fractional or interim executive to cover the function while the permanent search runs. This separates the urgency problem from the quality problem and allows the permanent search to run without artificial time pressure. See: Fractional vs. Full-Time Executive.
Compress the process, not the quality
A rigorous search can be compressed to 35-45 days without compromising quality — through pre-built brief infrastructure, parallel stage scheduling, and pre-approved offer parameters. What cannot be compressed is the depth of candidate assessment. Reference checks, working sessions, and CEO relationship time cannot be eliminated without proportionally increasing the risk of a wrong hire.
The 41-Day Proof Point
Majhi Group's average close time is 41 days. This is not a guarantee for every search -- brief quality, candidate pool size, and CEO availability all affect timeline. But it demonstrates that rigorous retained search can be fast. Speed and quality are not in opposition when the process is designed correctly.
See: The 41-Day Search Anatomy | Fractional vs. Full-Time | Executive Search Timeline
"41 days. A $275K search. Two firms failed in 60+ days. That's not luck -- that's a different system."
-- Majhi Group placement record. Read the full process anatomy